Cho and Gaines 177

9 Candidates, Donors, and Voters in
California’s First Blanket-Primary Elections

Wendy K. Tam Cho

Brian J. Gaines[(]

In March of 1996, by a 59.5% to 40.5% vote, California voters approved Proposition 198, thereby changing the state’s primary election law from closed to open. A large majority of citizens undoubtedly consider electoral law to be exceptionally esoteric, even less worthy of attention than normal party politics. By contrast, professional politicians quite sensibly take great interest in electoral mechanisms, as is evident from the heated arguments at the elite level that preceded and, especially, followed Proposition 198’s passage. In this chapter, we do not directly take sides on the merits and demerits of the “blanket” primary. Nor do we thoroughly dissect the logic of arguments advanced by Proposition 198’s friends and foes. Instead, we proceed by addressing their claims empirically: has opening the primaries had any of its anticipated consequences thus far? We compare California’s 1998 elections with those of 1992, 1994, and 1996 in search of significant, systematic changes in the behavior of candidates, voters, and campaign contributors. Our main conclusion is that these actors have been slow to react to new strategic opportunities. Changes in political behavior may yet manifest themselves, but people require time and practice to understand a new electoral system.

The chapter proceeds as follows. We begin by reviewing the debate that surrounded Proposition 198. Our goal is to extract hypotheses about the anticipated effects of a blanket primary law from arguments made by proponents and opponents in the 198 campaign. We then examine data from recent elections (both primary and general) to assess how accurate were these predictions. Specifically, we compare the 1998 election to its immediate predecessors. In examining the hypotheses, we focus on issues related to participation and campaign contributions. Finally, we conclude with some general discussion about when changes in electoral law should or should not be expected to affect outcomes.

In trying to identify what effects the change in California’s primary rules (or, indeed, any change in electoral law) ought to have, a natural way to start is by reviewing who promoted the change and who opposed it. In the next section, then, we consider what effects the pro- and anti-Proposition 198 forces highlighted in the spring 1996 campaign. We then turn attention to 1998’s legislative races, especially the contests for the U.S. House, to evaluate these hypotheses against the first run of the blanket primary system in California.

Hypotheses about Blanket Primaries

Prior to its debut in June of 1998, the blanket primary was regarded as something of a wild card by disinterested observers. In a preview of the election, CQ Weekly Report summarized “most pollsters and political consultants have been unable to predict how the new system will affect election results” (Birtel 1998, 1373). In the absence of expert consensus, a natural place to find hypotheses about the likely effects of Proposition 198 is the “official” debate provided to voters by the Secretary of State in the voters’ handbook. In this official state publication, opponents and proponents of each initiative present short statements in support of their positions. The state then circulates these pamphlets with ballots.[1] Each side can also rebut the other side’s claims, so this exchange provides the interested voter with a four-part debate on the merits of the policy at hand. The debate on Proposition 198 was not atypical, in that the arguments made on both sides were a blend of specific claims with a somewhat clear logic, vague and probably untestable points, and plentiful rhetoric. Again, in this chapter we will not dwell on the task of elucidating the logic behind the various positive and negative claims made about blanket primaries. Instead, we will regard these propositions as worthy of investigation and proceed directly to evaluating their empirical veracity.

Supporters of Proposition 198 broached three direct and two indirect arguments. Their direct arguments were that the switch to a blanket primary would “give voters a choice,” “increase voter participation,” and “restore healthy competition.” One of their indirect arguments was that the blanket primary was not an untried experiment: other states had already adopted such laws (and, implicitly, had thereby succeeded in improving something about their politics). California’s “closed” primary system was said to be broadly incompatible with Californians’ tastes for independence. Further, Proposition 198’s opponents were described as “hard liners” in both major political parties who opposed the blanket primary because it would weaken their own powers and the powers of the “special interests” that support them.

In the rebuttal to the anti-198 claims, the proponents stressed the value of having a choice. The ability to choose from all candidates was said to have a number of beneficial results: it makes elected officials more responsive to voters and not to party chairmen; it encourages candidates to address the issues rather than simply to make partisan appeals; it gives control to the voters and takes it away from special interest groups; and it strengthens the parties by increasing participation and by allowing candidates from both parties to be elected with broader bases of voter support.

The opponents of Proposition 198 adopted a not atypical style of rhetoric and repetition in their argument. The word “No” occurs 7 times in the initial one-page brief, four times in capital letters and three times with exclamation points. They stressed that only voters who are registered with a political party should be able to take part in picking that party’s flag bearers, but were light on justifications for this position. Their most explicit argument was that “self-serving politicians,” “special interests and political consultants” would abuse the blanket system. Mention of “massive checkbooks” implied that the blanket primary might ultimately prove to be far more expensive than its closed counterpart. And, somewhat prophetically, they raised the specter of the “badly drafted” initiative “clogging up” the courts.

In their rebuttal to pro-198 arguments, the opponents raised one other issue, that the blanket primary would exacerbate convergence of the parties. In this claim, they seem to have been agreeing with those proponents who contended that the blanket primary offers advantages to moderate candidates, while, of course, disagreeing on the normative status of this feature.

In all, we extracted the following testable hypotheses about the blanket primary from the voter’s handbook.

· Turnout could be higher, both because of direct expansion of voting opportunities for a significant portion of the eligible electorate, and because…

· races¾both primary and general¾could, on average, be morecompetitive.

· Non-partisan registration could soar, as voters are freed from artificial attractions to party registration.

· Moderate candidates could enjoy better results, leading to (more) convergence of parties.

· Primary campaigns could become more substantive and issue-based.

· Spending could increase, and special-interest spending could increase dramatically.

We will not examine all of these hypotheses in this chapter. Some are examined in other chapters of this volume (see, e.g., Gerber’s chapter on candidate moderation). Others, such as those concerning the amount of substance in campaigns, would require extremely time-consuming content analysis of speeches, TV advertisements, newspaper coverage, and so on.

Instead, we focus on the hypotheses related to voter participation and campaign finance. First, did voter turnout increase in 1998? Second, were the races in the primary or the general systematically more competitive? Third, is there evidence that financial contributions and campaign spending were different under the new regime? Did candidates spend more, on average? Did their expenditures become more front-loaded? Did contributors give more to campaigns? Did the timing of contributions shift to the primary election?

These are not, of course, unrelated questions. High turnout, high spending, and close races are frequent companions (e.g. Cox and Munger 1989). It is generally true that close elections are marked by higher turnout and by higher spending than are landslides. What is not obvious is what is cause and what effect. The closeness of the final election is undoubtedly affected by candidates’ campaign choices, donors’ decisions, and citizens’ selections, in a complicated, interactive multi-stage process. Fortunately, to answer our central query¾did the introduction of the blanket primary change political behavior?¾we need not grapple with the many facets of strategy in elections all at once. Instead, we will examine various electoral issues in sequence, without attempting to delineate a precise causal logic.

Voter Participation

Figure 9.1 shows rates of registration and turnout trends for California for all election years since 1944, when the legislative and presidential primaries were first synchronized.[2] For all four series, the denominator is voting-age population. Figures for registration include nonpartisan registrants, and turnout is measured by the total number of ballots cast. Not surprisingly, citizens are more likely to register and to vote in general elections than in primaries, year in and year out. The gap is especially pronounced in voting. The general-election turnout figure displays a familiar saw-tooth pattern also evident in national data: presidential-election years always draw larger shares of the electorate to the polls than do midterms. That effect is much less obvious or regular in primary elections. Finally, both turnout series exhibit (familiar) negative trends over the post-war era, while the registration series are fairly flat since about 1960, and even display a small upturn in the 1990s.

Figure 9.1: Turnout and Registration in Primary and General Elections, California 1944–1998

What is of immediate interest is whether the blanket primary delivered on the promise of increasing voter participation. Primary turnout in 1998 was 29.8%, just slightly lower than the 31.1% in 1996. If one compares to prior midterms, though, 1998 represents a positive swing. The years 1986, 1990, and 1994 saw primary election turnout rates of 28.1%, 28.0%, and 26.2%, for an average of 27.4%. Hence, one can interpret 1998 as having shown a roughly 2.4% surge in primary turnout. Note, however, that this surge did not carry over to the general. Also note that the blanket primary almost automatically guaranteed some rise in turnout, since it expanded voting opportunities for about 1.8 million voters who were registered, but not affiliated with any party. These voters could have made the trip to the polls under a closed system, but they were not permitted to participate in partisan primary races, so only ballot initiatives and local elections beckoned. Without a breakdown of participation by registration status, we cannot say definitively if the new primary law increased participation rates in any partisan subgroup, or simply expanded the reasons to show up for a new bloc of voters, who then participated in about the same numbers as did others. Quick calculations show that the numbers are, at least, consistent with this latter interpretation. If about 27.4% of registered partisans turned out to vote in the 1998 primaries, that would account for roughly 5.7 million votes, leaving about 500,000 votes unaccounted for. If those 500,000 were nonpartisan registrants, that would imply a 27.2% nonpartisan turnout at the primary. It is possible, of course, that the effects of the new openness in the primary were more complicated. But the aggregate data are consistent with a simple account, that turnout increased only in a mechanical sense, by fully admitting another set of citizens into the primary electorate. There is no obvious sign in the aggregate data that the blanket primary energized party registrants.

Did the change in primary law increase registration? Figure 9.1 shows that primary registration rose dramatically in 1994, and then slipped downwards in 1996 and 1998. But the main effect of letting independents participate more fully in primaries could be a rise in nonpartisan registration. Voters with fairly weak attachments to parties might, in the past, have opted to register with parties all the same, in order to maintain access to primary ballots for partisan offices. At 1.86 million, nonpartisan registration was at its highest ever total in 1998. As a share of the voting age population, this is about 9%. But while the trend is upwards, 1998 does not exhibit a sharp or dramatic rise. Nonpartisan registration has been increasing slowly since 1988, and the 1998 value is consistent with a mildly positive slope over these 6 elections, suggesting that it did not increase by an unexpectedly large amount.

Survey data, comparisons with other states, and investigation of turnout and registration values at the county and congressional-district level with controls for such factors as closeness of the races, might flesh out this picture. However, without this more elaborate analysis, it does not appear that Proposition 198’s immediate impact on participation rates was very dramatic, and so we will turn our attention to other forms of (possibly strategic) behavior. The next section turns to another of the previously delineated claims about the impact of the blanket primary by discussing candidate entry and competitiveness.

Candidates and Competitiveness in the Spring and Fall

Evaluating the competitiveness of a race is a deceptively complicated task. After the fact, one can easily observe how close a given election turned out to be. Under plurality rule, the margin of victory is an adequate measure of competitiveness in two-candidate races, and multi-candidate contests are only a little more difficult to characterize. But a larger issue is that all after-the-fact measures ignore campaign dynamics completely. Implicitly or explicitly, one invokes some variety of rational expectations assumption when taking the final observed closeness as an indicator of how competitive was a race at the outset and over the course of the campaign.[3] If one’s interest lies in, say, voter expectations, subjective ex ante closeness is much more important than objective, ex post closeness. The obvious difficulty in developing a more nuanced measure of closeness is that it requires very fine data: multiple opinion polls, pre-election surveys, real-time expert surveys, etc. Fortunately, our concern here is with the election outcome per se. Claims about competition made in the Proposition-198 debate were advanced about outcomes. So one can simply compare the final tallies in 1998 with those from closed primary elections to see whether or not the expected increase in competition transpired.

Tables 9.1 and 9.2 show descriptive statistics on California’s primary and general elections in the 1990s. The tables contain a large amount of information, and do not instantly convey a simple story. But the trends